Note: there might be formatting issues–I don’t think stuff like italics and such copied and pasted properly from Open Office. In any case, this is the first draft for chapter 1 of Faerie, introducing a few of our characters.

Some context: a few months ago, I decided that I’d pool all my writing energy into a project I called “Wander”, a post-post-apocalyptic story inspired in equal parts by Stan Sakai’s Usagi Yojimbo and the “The King of Fighters” videogame series. Eventually, I got around to writing chapter 5, which was a flashback to protagonist Pari Okhovat’s high school days, and would have been vastly different from the rest of the novel. However, as I wrote about characters and scenarios which I was planning never to reference again, I started thinking of the flashback story as the stronger one, or at least one where I had something in particular to say, and the one that stood the best chance of actually being completed. So, for the moment, I’ve decided to set “Wander” aside and focus on Pari’s high school days, in a project I call “Faerie”. What’s it about?

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Well, there’s high school in it. It has cheerleaders and jocks and devout Christians. It also has two Muslim girls with vastly different views of their religion, Lindy Hop, and at least one reference to The Amazing Race. As in most stories, it ends with the characters in rather different places than where they started. It is my sincerest hope that it doesn’t suck.

So! I’ll be posting excerpts, drafts, and snippets here as I come up with them, as well as comments, questions, and assorted stuff regarding the creative process. I’ll also be posting most of this stuff at Wishful Writers, a forum for aspiring writers operated by (maybe? I’m not 100% sure about this) J.D. Montague and Ana Mardoll, so there’s that.

So the only thing I was expecting to get this week was a copy of volume 61 of One Piece, so I could finally get into the New World arc and see how the Straw Hats are doing after the two year gap. No such luck. Instead, I ended up spending $80.00+ on three comics. On the plus side, I also realized that I have more money than I thought I did.

Anyways, here’s what I bought:

Womanthology (IDW): I first wrote about this last year, after I’d gotten swept by the initial hype. Now that it’s here, I have to say it was worth every one of those fifty dollars it cost. Basically, you get a bunch of mini-stories–no more than five pages–some very varied art, and some nice tips on how to make it in the business. If you’re a fan of the medium of comic books, then you should definitively add this to your collection.

Archie: The Married Life Vol. 2 (Archie Comics): Does anybody remember that Calvin and Hobbes strip where Calvin asks Hobbes what movie listings mean when they say a film has “adult situations”, and Hobbes says that it means the movie is about stuff like going to work and paying bills and all that stuff that never actually makes into movies starring adults? The Married Life is the comic about exactly just those types of situations, and does an excellent job in capturing the uncertainty of being just in the cusp of adulthood, where you aren’t quite sure how you got there or what you need to do next. It’s got its share of soap opera elements, to be sure, but unlike something like Revenge, this one is set in a world in which people are generally good–which, after reading something like D.C. comics for years, feels downright revolutionary.

G.I. Joe: Real American Heroes #176 (IDW): Haven’t read this in earnest yet, but so far, I’m not sure just what to make of it yet.